What Are Super-Enhancer LncRNAs and Why Study Them?

 

What are super enhancer lncRNAs?

Super-enhancer lncRNA (SE-lncRNAs), emerging as a novel class of master RNA regulators, is a special set of long noncoding RNAs transcribed from super-enhancer genomic loci. SE-lncRNAs, together with super-enhancers, activate the nearby gene expression by mechanisms of transcription factor trapping, chromatin looping, chromatin modification, PolII loading, and release of transcriptional repressor (Fig. 1). Also, SE-lncRNAs are increasingly found to trans-activate target genes [1]. SE-lncRNA have been associated with many human diseases and their expression manifests in profound phenotypic changes [1-3]

SE-LncRNA-BG

Fig. 1. SE-lncRNAs activate the target gene promoter by multiple mechanisms


Master regulator RNAs in biology and diseases

Super-enhancer lncRNAs play master regulatory roles in diverse gene expression programs that ultimately determine the cell types, cell identities, and diseases. For example, SE-lncRNAsCERNA and DRRRNA auto-regulate the master transcription factor MyoD and myogenic genes to turn on myogenesis [2]. Many SE-lncRNAs are intimately involved in cancers. A good example can be CCAT1-L, upstream of MYC gene. It mediates enhancer-promoter loop formation, activates MYC expression and promotes colorectal cancer progression [3].

The super-enhancer lncRNAs, emerged from hidden just recently, are now a scientific gold mine in the research of any fields of biology and disease. Arraystar has developed the SE-lncRNA profiling solution to simultaneously profile SE-lncRNAs, target genes, transcription factors and oncogenes, to accelerate the investigation of SE lncRNAs and the coding genes under their control. 


Related Service

Super-enhancer lncRNA Array Service​


References
1. Bradner JE, Hnisz D, Young RA: Transcriptional Addiction in Cancer. Cell 2017, 168(4):629-643.[PMID: 28187285]
2. Alvarez-Dominguez JR, Knoll M, Gromatzky AA, Lodish HF: The Super-Enhancer-Derived alncRNA-EC7/Bloodlinc Potentiates Red Blood Cell Development in trans. Cell Rep 2017, 19(12):2503-2514.[PMID: 28636939]
3. Xiang JF et al: Human colorectal cancer-specific CCAT1-L lncRNA regulates long-range chromatin interactions at the MYC locus. Cell Res 2014, 24(5):513-531.[PMID: 24662484]
4. Vucicevic D et al: Long ncRNA expression associates with tissue-specific enhancers. Cell Cycle 2015, 14(2):253-260.[PMID: 25607649]
5. Hon CC et al: An atlas of human long non-coding RNAs with accurate 5' ends. Nature 2017, 543(7644):199-204.[PMID: 28241135]
6. Soibam B: Super-lncRNAs: identification of lncRNAs that target super-enhancers via RNA:DNA:DNA triplex formation. RNA 2017, 23(11):1729-1742.[PMID: 28839111]

 

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